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Super red tape run-around

Mr Petersen has been sorting out his super as he and his wife try to progress paying off their mortgage.

He went to Gosnells MLA Chris Tallentire’s office to have papers certified, as electoral officers there certify documents for everything from passports to statutory declarations and guardianships.

When the last super fund on his list would not accept the officer’s signature, he tried Australia Post, but the post office could not help because the outlet was a franchise, not a traditional Australia Post employee.

Rather than turn to police or a lawyer, he eventually found a Justice of the Peace in Gosnells to certify his documents.

Mr Tallentire said his office often turned away frustrated constituents who could not get their documents signed because most super funds used restricted certifiers lists according to ‘annoying and unjustified’ red tape in Federal law.

Mr Tallentire wrote to Treasury asking for a slight amendment to the law. He said adding the phrase ‘and anyone who is authorised under State and Territory law to do so’ to the list would do the trick.

But the reply he received said given the sums of money involved, it was important that evidence to support written rollover claims was ‘robust’ and for this reason the laws would not change.

It said rollover requests made online did not require certified paperwork because they used Australian Taxation Office information to confirm identity.

It said Mr Tallentire said busy people would continue being ‘sent from pillar to post, visiting pharmacists, police and GPs, wasting time’ due to a simple irregularity between State and Federal law.

‘It makes a mockery of Tony Abbott’s claim of 8000 regulations to be cut ‘